Ukraine's first victory over eastern rebels leads Russia to show its hand

In the last seven days, Ukraine's bid to retake the east has gained ground -
but Russia's part in the turmoil has become increasingly obvious

Pro-Russian fighters of Vostok (East) battalion rest in the regional state building in the eastern Ukrainian city of DonetskPhoto: AFP

By Roland Oliphant, Donetsk and David Blair

1:05PM BST 31 May 2014

Sergei Prokofiev International Airport was once a gleaming symbol of Donetsk’s revival as an industrial city.

Opened in time forUkraineto co-host the European Championships in 2012, it regularly received passenger jets from nearly a dozen countries and its shining halls defied the expectations of travellers accustomed to post-Soviet sparsity.

Not anymore. On Saturday, the seven-storey terminal was scarred by automatic gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades; only the occasional burst of shooting broke the eerie silence in surrounding streets.

The battle for the airport was one of a series of key developments that could amount to a turning point in eastern Ukraine’s crisis. In the space of the last seven days, the country has elected a new president, the army retook Prokofiev airport from pro-Russian insurgents - achieving its first significant victory since the conflict began - and the eastern rebellion itself seemed to change shape, emerging as an overtly Russian operation.

Ukraine’s bid to re-impose government control over the east finally began to gain ground last week, in turn forcing Russia’s hand in the turmoil into the open.

Petro Poroshenko’s victory in the presidential election last Sunday was the first turning point. It gave the country a legitimate, elected leader for the first time since Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in the revolution in February.

With 55 per cent of the vote, Mr Poroshenko has a mandate to integrate Ukraine with Europe and reform the economy. His victory also gives Ukraine a single leader with whom the Kremlin can do business - and, despite much truculence, Russia says that it will deal with him.

Mr Poroshenko has also denounced rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk regions as “terrorists” and ruled out negotiations. It may not have been a coincidence the biggest battle between government forces and pro-Russian rebels took place the day after his election victory.

The thinking behind the rebel decision to take over Prokofiev airport in the early hours of last Monday morning remains unclear. Alexander Borodai, the “prime minister” of the “Donetsk People’s Republic”, claimed the Ukrainian security forces broke an agreement. “There was a deal: the Ukrainians would have been allowed to leave with all their equipment and the airport would have remained neutral,” he said.

Whatever the reasoning, the seizure of the airport was to prove a mistake. Taking advantage of the relative absence of civilian homes nearby, the Ukrainians deployed every bit of firepower at their disposal, including fighter bombers and helicopter gunships, to take it back.

They achieved their goal within hours, killing dozens of rebels. This was a military blunder from which the insurgents may not recover. Exactly how many rebel fighters died is still not known. At least 33 lay in Donetsk city morgue the following day, but Mr Borodai has placed the toll as high as 100, with many bodies still not recovered. So far, however, the Ukrainians have not followed up their success with an assault on Donetsk city itself. For now, the conflict appears to have settled into a tense stalemate.

The second key development - the Russification of the rebel movement - came in response to this defeat. Rebel leaders have previously denied that their fighters were from anywhere but Ukraine, insisting that the movement is a homegrown uprising, born of hatred towards the new post-revolutionary “fascist” government in Kiev.

But the leadership has now changed tack. Mr Borodai and other leaders summoned the media to witness the repatriation of the bodies of 33 Russian citizens killed in the fighting.

The US government has confirmed that most of the 40,000 Russian troops previously massed near Ukraine’s eastern frontier have withdrawn. But that does not mean Russia is abandoning the rebels.

Instead, the movement of irregular forces across the border appears to have been stepped up and Russian citizens have assumed the leadership of the insurgents. Mr Borodai himself is from Moscow - as are some key aides. Some fighters have admitted to being from Chechnya and other parts of Russia, suggesting that a steady drip-feed of men and equipment across the border is keeping the rebellion alive.

It is unclear how far the Kremlin, or anyone else, controls the forces at work in Donetsk today.

One glimmer of hope for a diplomatic solution is that Mr Poroshenko is expected to meet President Vladimir Putin during the commemoration of the D-Day landings in France next week. At the very least, the prospect of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has receded.

”It seems that Russia did decide at the end of the day to step back from the brink,” said John Lough, an associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia programme at Chatham House. “But they are probably looking for other means to achieve their goal.”

The underlying causes of the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine remain unresolved: Mr Poroshenko has promised to sign an association agreement with the European Union and bring his country into the European mainstream. Mr Lough warned that that Russia would probably use the eastern insurgency as a tool to thwart these goals. “The danger is that Russia keeps this simmering on a low flame and uses this to say ‘if you don’t give us what we want, then this can get a great deal worse’,” he said.

If Mr Poroshenko and the EU sign an association agreement, Mr Lough predicted that Russia would react by “telling us to ‘go ahead, be our guests - but this will divide Ukraine’. The subtext will be ‘we’ll make damn sure it divides the country’.”